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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564739">Nineteen Years</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elder_flower/pseuds/elder-flower'>elder-flower (elder_flower)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, First Kiss, Gen, Geralt gets sad, M/M, monsters bein' monstery, the silly sausages love each other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:00:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564739</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elder_flower/pseuds/elder-flower</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Geralt's always assumed that Jaskier's told him all his secrets, but when he gets injured, it turns out that's decidedly not the case. That... feels worse than Geralt would have expected.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>132</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Well hello! Here I go, posting Witcher stuff! Not sure it's good enough to share, honestly, but here I go anyway.</p><p>Jaskier's appearance in my head, and therefore in this fic, is based on the wonderful work of daryshkart over on Tumblr, I have no doubt you'll have seen it if you're in this fandom even peripherally! </p><p>Hope everyone stays safe as we all continue to use copious amounts of Witcher fic to cope with the overwhelming stress of existence x</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's a day like any other, and they've known each other nineteen years.</p><p>Geralt doesn't know that, as such. He's never seen much need to keep track, and honestly never even wondered how long it's been. </p><p>But then he's in the middle of a forest, in the middle of a <em>fight</em>, and Jaskier is there all of a sudden, right in harm's way. Geralt sees that the leshen he's fighting has sensed his attention shifting and stilled, and all he can think is <em>how many years</em> has he spent watching Jaskier get into trouble and out again (sometimes with and sometimes without his help)? After all this time, the time that he doesn't get out <em>cannot be now</em>...</p><p>The leshen's vicious thralls abruptly lose interest in Geralt and hare toward their new target. They won't reach him before the witcher does, but it's too late anyway; the leshen itself vanishes and looms out of the shadows by Jaskier, huge and horrifying like it didn't seem a moment ago, like it might seem if Geralt didn't fight huge, horrifying things every day. In an awful moment that Geralt will remember with absolute clarity for years to come, he's running towards Jaskier and the monster, Jaskier seems to sense rather than see that something's beside him and turns <em>towards</em> it-</p><p>
  <em>No</em>
</p><p>-and the leshen just slashes at him, one effortless, lightning-quick slice of its claws across his chest, raking his arm aside as he tries to lift it to protect himself.</p><p><em>No</em>-</p><p>Jaskier never even makes a sound; he just drops out of sight into the tangled undergrowth. The scent of his blood seems to fill the entire forest.</p><p>The leshen disappears again. Geralt whirls around just as it materializes behind him, furious and growing in fury every second he isn't reaching Jaskier, and blasts it with igni. He doesn't remember ever having created such searing, blinding fire before, or as much of it - it incinerates the creature to nothing instantly. </p><p>As he finally approaches the place where he saw Jaskier fall, the wolves and crows that were under the leshen's control disappear into the trees and unnatural silence takes hold. His medallion is still humming, he realises with uneasy surprise, stopping still. He needs to help Jaskier, needs to get to him, but something's wrong. There's still danger nearby. </p><p>He starts forward again, reluctantly slow, reaching his senses out to find whatever creature or magic is still present, but there's nothing, nothing except...</p><p>He finally reaches Jaskier, where he lies unconscious, completely still and bleeding into the thick ferns and thorny brambles, but it's not him.</p><p><em>It's not him</em>.</p><p>It is him, though.</p><p>It takes a fraction of a second for Geralt's confused mind to catch up with his senses and realise that it is him, because he looks so different, and so clearly, inescapably <em>not human</em>. </p><p>He's wasted too much time already, he can't spare more to try and catalogue the changes. He tries to ignore them instead, but as he drops to one knee and starts to assess Jaskier's wounds, his mind insists on assessing the rest of him too:</p><p>Blood - he's losing enough to be life-threatening, there's no question (still smells like human blood, even though it doesn't, up close, entirely look it - still dark, rich red but shimmering with a greenish blue, like shot silk).</p><p>Need to slow the bleeding, get him to a healer; can't risk trying to do either til he knows more.</p><p>Wounds - deep, but not as deep as Geralt first feared. He can stitch them if necessary, but a healer will do a much better job. Three ragged gashes across his chest, two continuing down his right arm, ending on his palm (hands almost completely transformed: fingers longer than natural for a human; narrow, pointed fingertips an icy blue-green colour, fading to his usual skin colour around halfway down his hands).</p><p>Internal damage - most likely none. Hmm, ribs generally intact, may be cracked where the creature first made contact (no apparent major structural changes to his body or skeleton; internally? Who fucking knows?)</p><p>Head injuries - none; he's probably unconscious due to shock and or blood loss (long ears sweeping up and back beside his head, that same hint of blue to them as his hands, deepening toward the pointed tips; horns, he's- he's got fucking <em>horns</em>, what the fuck,</p><p><em>what the fuck</em>)</p><p>For just a fraction of a second Geralt allows his mind to fill with questions (the main one, of course, being <em>what the fuck</em>) and possible answers, some more likely than others (could the leshen's touch have- no, ridiculous, not to mention impossible... a spell could do this, but there's nobody around to have cast it... some kind of curse, maybe, triggered to manifest by blood or trauma...) Then he clears his thoughts again, as much as he is able,a sets to work, using his signs and makeshift bandages torn from Jaskier's shirt to keep him from losing too much more blood. He digs into the battered satchel still strapped to Jaskier's body for the non-witcher-safe first aid supplies that he has to keep forcing him to buy when he would rather spend his coin on notebooks and ink and fucking hats. Once he's tipped a small but pricey potion down his throat to stabilize him further, he finally sits back, almost as much blood on his hands and arms and chest as Jaskier has.</p><p>After taking just a breath or two for himself, he leans forward again to scoop Jaskier up in his arms. As he stands and turns to take off back toward the edge of the forest and the nearby village, which thankfully he already knows is home to at least one healer, something catches his eye, something bright and glinting in the dark, blood-soaked underbrush. He maneuvers awkardly so he can crouch down and pick it up without letting go of his unconscious burden, and examines it over Jaskier's knees as he continues moving, fast enough to get back quickly but not so fast he jolts him around and causes him more pain or injury.</p><p>It's an almost perfect disc, perhaps an inch across, of some kind of stone he's never seen before, smooth and silvery white. Sets of two tiny holes on opposite edges are threaded with thin leather cords, still tied in neat knots, but broken.</p><p>It's familiar, but only the fact that he's found it under these circumstances allows him to recall why: Jaskier wears it as a bracelet. The leshen's claws would have cut right through the cords as they tore down the flesh of his arm. Geralt's never really looked at it properly, assuming it was a token from an ex-lover or a keepsake from a family member, but now he comes to look closely at it, it's simple and rough compared to the trinkets Jaskier usually tends to pick out for himself. </p><p>It's also extremely strange, shimmering in a way that doesn't seem related to the way the dim light shifts beneath the trees, and bearing a symbol that doesn't even so much as remind Geralt of any he knows etched roughly into one side. This is what his medallion is reacting to, he thinks. It has to be. This, or... </p><p>Another thought starts to take shape, a suspicion, one that would never, ever have crossed his mind before.<em> Surely not</em>, he thinks. How long have they known each other now? Far too long for him never to have noticed, never to have even slightly suspected...</p><p>As they draw near the outskirts of the village, the trees thin out noticeably, and the thick tangle of vegetation becomes easier terrain. Quickly but carefully, Geralt lays Jaskier down on the mossy ground. He takes a deep breath, then gently presses the stone against the back of Jaskier's uninjured hand.</p><p>Instantly, he's his usual self. No horns, no blue tinted skin, just round ears, red blood - an entirely normal human. </p><p>And the wolf medallion finally falls still. It takes not just a strong enchantment. but also an expertly put together one to make both a magical creature and itself so completely undetectable when active, but that's what this is, Geralt knows it with sudden and unwelcome certainty.</p><p>Unable to help himself, he lifts the stone away from Jaskier's skin and presses it back down a few times, just watching him change and change back.</p><p>Then he ties the leather cords carefully around Jaskier's uninjured wrist, glaring down at his own hands as he does it.</p><p>Jaskier's strange transformation isn't the enchantment, isn't the illusion. No, this, the handsome and strange but ultimately normal human - <em>this</em> is the illusion. </p><p>The other him, the other-worldly creature that Geralt would never in a thousand years have expected to see in his place - that's just... him. That's who he's been all along, for all the however many years of their acquaintance and for who knows how many years, <em>decades</em>, before that.</p><p>Making sure the stone, now marred by his bloody fingerprints in Jaskier's blood, is secure, Geralt sighs. He picks Jaskier up again, and his heart is undeniably heavy as he carries him out of the forest to get help. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ahaha, 1/2 magically became 2/3! Hmm.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The people of the village, who were surprisingly unbothered by having a witcher in their midst when he and Jaskier arrived, look distinctly more concerned when Geralt strides out of the forest at high speed. To be fair, he is covered in blood, carrying the unconscious body of his own companion (also covered in blood and dripping more onto the ground), and no doubt wearing an expression like an oncoming storm.</p>
<p>"Healer," he barks as soon as he's close enough, and a woman in a yard full of hens points wordlessly, while everyone else in sight just stares at him. </p>
<p>"Oi, is he alright?" someone calls from a group in front of the inn as he follows her silent direction uphill along the village's main track.</p>
<p>"No, that's why I need a <em>fucking</em> healer!" Geralt snarls, and turns his angriest, fiercest glare in the general direction of the truly stupid question asker. </p>
<p>A man on the path just ahead of Geralt crouches down next to a small girl holding his hand. "Run on ahead and tell Gloriana the witcher's coming, and his friend is hurt. Fast as you can now, there's a good girl," he says, and the girl sprints off with a gleeful yell, too excited to have been given a task to pay any attention to Geralt and Jaskier and all the blood. The man gestures for Geralt to follow her, and he does, with a nod of gratitude. Not everyone in this place is completely fucking useless then.</p>
<p>He loses sight of her round a corner, and by the time he catches up she's disappeared, but there's a conspicuously open door, so he heads for that. A tall but frail-looking woman appears in the doorway and ushers him in with no preamble, not so much as a greeting, which Geralt appreciates.</p>
<p>She leads him through to a small chamber and points at a narrow bed set in the middle of the room with space to stand on both sides. "Put him on there," she says, and starts inspecting Jaskier almost before Geralt's even laid him down. "Claws, obviously. That thing in the forest do this? The monster you were after?"</p>
<p>"Yes," Geralt confirms, then adds "a leshen," in case that's any help.</p>
<p>"Doesn't mean much to me," she replies. "Anything I should know about it? Venomous? Any magical effects it can give its victims?"</p>
<p>"No, nothing like that. You just need to stop the-"</p>
<p>"Alright Witcher, I don't tell you how to do your job so don't tell me how to do mine. Get out of here, wait in the kitchen. Oh, and make some tea, please." The inclusion of the word "please" doesn't make it sound any more like a request than anything else she just said. "TERREL! GET IN HERE!" she yells, and Geralt crosses paths with a placid looking dwarf as he does as he's told and leaves the room.</p>
<p>He finds the kitchen easily and sits himself down heavily at the old, uneven oak table in the middle of the room. Then he remembers that the healer, presumably Gloriana, all but ordered him to make tea.</p>
<p>He wonders, as he fills a pot that's probably older than he is with water and hangs it over the fire, if she gave him this task in an attempt to lessen his worry about Jaskier's condition. It's what he might do, to get a well-meaning friend or relative out from underfoot and distract them a little at the same time. The truth is, though, that he isn't that worried about Jaskier. It makes him... unhappy, seeing him injured and in pain, but he did an adequate job of temporarily patching him up back in the forest, and now he's under the care of a healer - an efficient, self-assured one at that - Geralt fully trusts that he'll survive and be well again. </p>
<p>But now he no longer has the goal of getting Jaskier help <em>right now</em> to focus on with absolute single-mindedness, he can't put aside the new knowledge that he's been stubbornly refusing to engage with. </p>
<p>Jaskier is not human. He's <em>not human</em>, and he's hidden it from Geralt, with complete success, for... well, for many years.</p>
<p>Half of him wants to simply not think about it, pretend he never saw how the bard really looks, say nothing about it and act like nothing has changed. </p>
<p>The other half of him wants to think of nothing else, feels a compulsive need to analyse everything about the situation. In the sudden calm and quiet of the stranger's home he finds himself in, this side of him has already won; he starts unpicking any random memory of Jaskier he can come up with, looking for signs that must have been there (how could he have missed this so completely?), all the time picturing with as much clarity as he can Jaskier's other - his real - form (what does it tell him? What is Jaskier, if not a human?) </p>
<p>And what's more dizzying, more headache-inducing, than his racing thoughts is the feelings that have arisen in him. There are so many of them, and some of them contradict each other, and they're strong and he can't ignore them. He's excellent at ignoring his fucking feelings, but he <em>can't ignore them</em>.</p>
<p>He's angry at Jaskier for keeping it from him, he thinks - thinks because it's not anger in the same clear, burning way he usually experiences it. It's... confused, layered over and under with something else he doesn't want to recognise as sorrow, and half of it at least is aimed at himself for not seeing. </p>
<p>He also feels <em>proud</em> that he didn't see - proud of Jaskier and pleased, relieved almost, that he's clearly so capable of hiding this secret that would bring him only danger if it came to light. If he could fool a witcher, in close proximity, for <em>years</em>, he can surely fool any human and keep himself safe. </p>
<p>And above all, he feels unaccountably damaged, as if his new knowledge and his overwhelming feelings have been forged together into something that has somehow been able to injure him. It does feel startlingly like a physical injury, and like after a physical injury, he feels weak, and ashamed, for letting it affect him so. </p>
<p>And a physical injury he would know how to treat, or at least approximately how long he could expect it to take to heal. He doesn't know what to do with this pain, doesn't know how to reconcile with it, or how long it will take to feel better if he can't.</p>
<p>He searches the kitchen for tea leaves, and digs out a pot that will do for tea, even if that's not its intended purpose, and a set of rough looking clay cups. He makes the tea and sets it all out and it doesn't take his mind off anything for even a second.</p>
<p>He drinks some, mainly because he thinks it's probably expected of him, and stares at the table, and stares, and <em>thinks</em>, and waits.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>"We're done," Gloriana interrupts his musing in that straightforward manner that Geralt likes, sitting down opposite him and helping herself to the almost cold tea. "Since you're definitely stronger than me and all my assistants put together, you can move him yourself. Two doors down from the room you left him in. Go on, then."</p>
<p>Geralt's already getting to his feet. </p>
<p>"He's... well?" he asks, just to be sure.</p>
<p>"No he's not <em>well</em>," the healer says as if he's an idiot. "He's badly injured, and he's lost an awful lot of blood. He'll be unconscious a while yet. But he'll live, and he should recover quickly enough. Go on, I'll check on the two of you in a bit."</p>
<p>Geralt nods and hastily goes to leave.</p>
<p>"Witcher," Gloriana adds, stopping him in the doorway. "You did well. Patched him up nicely. Saved his life, no doubt. Well, I'm sure you knew that, but it's nice to hear anyway, isn't it?"</p>
<p>Geralt did know that, and it is nice to hear anyway. </p>
<p>He makes a noise that fails to convey his gratitude then, despite a quiet sense of dread about seeing him, practically runs back to Jaskier.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Why...am I like this? </p><p>The chapter count has gone up again, for this fic where NOTHING HAPPENS. How is it possible to use so many words to say so little? WHY AM I LIKE THIS-</p><p>Welcome back. I would promise that the next chapter really will be the last, but I would obviously have no idea if I was telling the truth or not.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The room Gloriana directed him to bring Jaskier to is another small, mostly bare chamber, but this one has an empty bed against each wall, and a small window with a badly made clay vase of dried flowers on the sill. The beds look much more comfortable and welcoming than the one Jaskier had been treated on, with fat pillows and faded patchwork quilts, if equally as narrow. Geralt himself has recovered from injuries in far, far less pleasant places.</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier lies still and silent on one of the beds, where Geralt has just put him as gently as he could. He looks incredibly pale, and though the wounds across his chest and down his arm are stitched up neatly and healed enough already that magic was probably involved too, they're going to become pretty extreme scars. Still, he's breathing regularly and his heartbeat is normal - at least for now, he's free of pain or distress. </p><p> </p><p>Geralt watches him do nothing for a few moments then takes the quilt from the other bed and lays it over him, just in case he gets cold.</p><p> </p><p>He might as well use the other bed himself, he decides, and sits on it with his legs drawn up beneath him, but he finds he just can't quite enter the meditative state he was intending on, opening his eyes against his will every few seconds to watch Jaskier some more. His brutal wounds may be hidden beneath the worn material he’s now covered with, but in his mind's eye Geralt can still see them. His true, strange form may be hidden by the magic of the amulet at his wrist, but Geralt can still see that too, see the way he looked on the forest floor and in his arms - strange and otherworldly, familiar and unfamiliar... <em>Unconscious and bleeding</em>. Magical and quite lovely. <em>Torn open</em>-</p><p> </p><p>Each thought, each image, inevitably flows into the other. He can't stop them, can't clear his mind like he normally so easily can.</p><p> </p><p>And it's so hard to match those versions of Jaskier he can’t stop picturing - <em>injured, inhuman</em> - to the still, silent man he's actually looking at. It's quite surreal, and he could almost believe none of the events of today happened at all. He certainly feels tired enough that it could all have been a painfully vivid dream he's just woken up from.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn't fight his unsettled mind for too long, and soon after he gives up and resigns himself to just having to have patience, Jaskier starts stirring. After shifting about a bit he says something slurred and quiet that sounds like it was meant to be "what the hell is going on", and Geralt can see his eyes blinking repeatedly, trying to stay open.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey," he says, aiming for a calm, unhurried tone of voice, not sure that he doesn't sound nervous and breathlessly relieved instead. Jaskier turns his head slowly toward him and keeps blinking those blue eyes, this time straight in his direction.</p><p> </p><p>"Geralt," he murmurs quietly, a tired smile appearing then quickly disappearing. "Feel... terrible. 'm I... sick?"</p><p> </p><p>"You're going to be fine," Geralt reassures him, hurriedly getting to his feet. He takes a step toward Jaskier's bed but stops as Gloriana comes marching into the room with perfect timing. It would almost seem possible that she's been waiting outside, listening for the sound of her patient waking up, except that Geralt would have heard her there, despite his preoccupation, and anyway, he highly doubts an eminently practical person like her would waste her time like that.</p><p> </p><p>"You don't remember what happened?" she asks, and Jaskier turns his head again, with obvious effort, to gaze blearily up at her. "Big old monster got you," she tells him bluntly - possibly a little too bluntly, Geralt thinks for a second, but Jaskier doesn't look particularly distressed by the news. In fact, after a long moment of blankness and silence, he lets out a tired laugh.</p><p> </p><p>"S'pose it w's bound t' happ'n 'ventually," he murmurs, each word melting into the next. Geralt’s heart sinks slightly at his familiar, casual lack of concern for his own safety – a lack of concern that leads him to do things like<em> following Geralt into a strange forest after a fucking leshen</em>. It didn’t occur to him at the time, and he’s had too many other things demanding his attention since, to wonder what Jaskier was doing there, but of course the hunt had taken him longer than he’d expected, the leshen more huge and more ancient by far than he had thought, and he has no doubt that Jaskier started making plans to come and check on him the very moment he failed to return when predicted. As if he could have done anything to help him win such a dangerous fight, or somehow saved him if the monster had got the better of him.</p><p> </p><p>He’s an idiot, and Geralt could almost be angry at him about it – is angry, he thinks, as he always is when Jaskier <em>isn’t careful - </em>but that anger is in the distant recesses of his mind somewhere, behind the hurt and confusion and all the many other things today has thrown up to fill it. It’s a discussion they’ll need to have soon, but it’s <em>always</em> a discussion they <em>always</em> need to have soon, and Jaskier’s never taken heed of it yet. He’ll let it go for now.</p><p> </p><p>Geralt suspects he’s frowning as he considers all this, because Jaskier looks at him and frowns back, eyes heavy, watching him with distant confusion as Gloriana checks over his wounds. Geralt tries to listen to what she's saying about spells and stitches and scarring, because Jaskier certainly isn't taking it in.</p><p> </p><p>She seems to approve of his condition, and soon leaves them with instructions for him to rest, sleep if possible, and under no circumstances try and get up, and a promise to return with food and drink and something to help with pain as soon as it’s safe for him to have them. As soon as she closes the door, Geralt pulls his bed easily across the room so he can sit closer, but he finds he has no idea what to say.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m… sorry,” Jaskier says in a rasp, saving him from having to find comforting words that don’t come naturally to him. “I know you’re… angry with me for… getting myself hurt,” he says in exhausting sounding bursts of speech between sleepy, sighing breaths. “I remember… now… a bit. Had to come, though… Had to... Was… scared, really scared, you… were taking so long. Too long…”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not angry,” Geralt tells him. It’s a lie, well, at least a half-lie, and there’s no way Jaskier doesn’t know that. “Doesn’t matter now anyway, just matters that you’re alright.” Jaskier smiles at him, the tired, slightly vague smile of someone who’s been treated with magic and sedative herbs, and Geralt wishes quite desperately that he could pretend nothing (beyond life-threatening injury) happened today and not mention <em>the other thing</em>. He has no choice though – once Jaskier is a bit less drowsy, once he can sit up and take stock of his own injuries, he’s soon going to notice his bracelet is on the wrong arm and Geralt can’t possibly feign ignorance of what happened in between it coming off one wrist and being tied back onto the other.  </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Can he? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>No, of course he can’t.</p><p> </p><p>At least he doesn’t have to mention it quite yet. It wouldn’t be fair not to wait until Jaskier’s at least had a chance to get some sleep and has something like a clear head – and if it feels like a temporary reprieve to Geralt, well, that’s by the by.  </p><p> </p><p>“Close your eyes,” he says instead. “Sleep will help you recover.”</p><p> </p><p>“‘Kay,” Jaskier whispers, and is indeed asleep within seconds.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The next few hours go on in much the same manner as the last few: Jaskier lies sleeping, and Geralt, incapable of meditation, let alone real rest, waits and watches over him and thinks and <em>wishes he could stop thinking</em>. Gloriana’s assistant, the one Geralt saw briefly in passing earlier on, bustles in and out just to check Jaskier’s breathing, feel his pulse and take notes, nodding but saying nothing. Every now and then, Jaskier wakes up dozily.</p><p> </p><p>“Is there enough money t’pay the healer?” he asks worriedly one of those times, and is asleep again before Geralt’s finished assuring him that there is; although he doesn’t know how much Gloriana will ask for, they have some, and he’s owed more, and if he needs to he can find another job and come back with even more.</p><p> </p><p>“What happened?” he asks another time, then grins dopily as Geralt frowns at him in concern. “Just kidding. I remember. Kind of.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not funny,” Geralt growls at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Geralt, don’t… leave me,” he mutters yet another time, frowning and shifting a little but not even opening his eyes. If Geralt couldn’t hear his slightly increased heartbeat, he’d think he hadn’t actually woken up at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Not going anywhere,” he says in response, feeling strange, like he’s too large for this tiny room, his voice too loud to be comforting. Despite this sensation of odd discomfort, he leans forward and hesitantly puts out his hand to stroke Jaskier’s messy hair. <em>This is stupid</em>, he thinks. Why is he doing this? But Jaskier visibly relaxes, and makes a dozy, contented humming noise, so Geralt keeps running his hand through his hair as he goes back to sleep, apparently comforted after all.</p><p> </p><p>He can’t help but think about the strange horns he now knows Jaskier has, feeling a particularly painful twist of anger, confusion, <em>loss</em> of all things - everything he’s been feeling all day. He can remember seeing them with such clarity, but he can’t see them now, of course, and he can’t feel them at all. It just confirms that the enchantment on that stone is an extremely good one.</p><p> </p><p>“Why wouldn’t you just fucking tell me?” he mutters. It’s a stupid question, with a lot of answers, but he can’t stop silently asking him – asking himself. <em>Why the fuck didn’t he tell me?</em> He sighs and continues stroking Jaskier’s soft hair, hoping it’s helping soothe his sleep even as he irrationally resents that Jaskier has forced him into a position where he’s going to have to confront him with his own secret, and while he’s injured at that.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Jaskier wakes and stays awake, looking tired and pale but somewhat more alert.</p><p> </p><p>“By all the gods, this fucking hurts,” he says with surprising cheer, given just <em>how much</em> it must hurt, pushing the quilt off himself with his uninjured arm. Geralt sees the stone of his bracelet glinting even in the relatively dim room, and feels a jolt of anxiety, a feeling that’s become extremely familiar to him over the course of the day. “Geralt, can you help me sit up?” Jaskier says, cursing as he tries to push himself up and fails. Geralt stands to do just that, and Jaskier smiles up at him, apparently not noticing that he’s frowning so much that he’s making his own face ache, but then looks down at his own bare chest, his expression turning to shock as he takes in the stark gouges across his chest and arm, and then to something even more horrified as he notices, inevitably, that his wrist is bare except for its new scars. He reaches compulsively for his head, wincing in pain as the use of his damaged arm no doubt pulls horribly at the wounds, patting urgently at his hair and his ears, then freezes as he notices the bracelet, hastily tied back onto the wrong arm as he lay unconscious in the forest.</p><p> </p><p>“Jaskier…” Geralt starts, and Jaskier flinches and slowly, slowly turns to look at him… and then the door opens and Gloriana breezes in.</p><p> </p><p>“Good, you’re up! I need to have another look at you,” she says, apparently heedless of the tense atmosphere in the room. “Then I’ve got some medicine you need to take, and then you can have something to eat and drink. <em>Bisa!</em>” Her sudden shout makes Jaskier flinch again. Another assistant, a halfling, enters the room carrying a tray, and sets it down, and starts attempting to shove Geralt’s bed back into its proper place, and Gloriana herself starts lining up small glass bottles on the windowsill, and Geralt and Jaskier just stare at each other, frozen in awful stillness, over the sudden sea of activity.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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